This Is Not The End
by Oliviet
Summary: "This wasn't happening. This wasn't real. They did not rescue him from his kidnapping or whatever the hell that was to turn around and have her get kidnapped." Post ep for 7x14 "Resurrection" and eventually for 7x15 "Reckoning."
1. Chapter 1

This wasn't happening. This wasn't real. They did not rescue him from his kidnapping or whatever the hell that was to turn around and have _her _get kidnapped. Her life was supposed to be out of danger now that they had Bracken in custody. She was supposed to be safe. This was _his _battle to fight, not hers.

He's kicking himself yet again for letting Tyson get away four years ago. For shooting him straight into the river two years ago and not making sure there was a body to prove that it was really over. Because that man had threatened not only him in that jail cell, but his family, _his Kate_. And now the bastard had brought that threat to life, going after him by going after those most important to him. Maybe he should ask the boys to put a protective detail on the loft, protect the rest of the women in his life.

He can't fall asleep. He keeps waking up to images of Kate's lifeless body with a rope burn around her neck, her hair dyed a bottle blonde to fit into Tyson's type. He dry heaves into the trash can at the thought, his eyes prickling with tears.

How did she do this for two months? Sleep in this bed without him, not knowing where he was or whether he was dead or alive? He remembers then that she had gone back to her old apartment, the pain of being in his space without him being too much for her to bear. But still he imagines that sleep hadn't been easy for her. Especially not with her history of nightmares.

He can't just lay here and sleep when he knows that she's out there having god knows what done to her. He has to save her. There has to be something that he can do. He feels responsible for this mess, for Tyson being a free man with a seemingly new identity.

They had him. He was right there. Multiple times now.

Castle digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, wishing he had something to punch, wishing he had _Tyson _to punch.

He thinks about last year when she had gone undercover as Elena and she had fallen off the grid. About how he found her passed out and bleeding in that motel weeks later after Bracken's men got to her. She does not need this. She has already been tortured enough in her lifetime. She's supposed to be safe now. They caught Bracken, he tells himself again, that was supposed to mean that she was safe.

She must be stronger than he is. To survive this gut wrenching feeling for two months...he's going to do nothing but apologize and worship her when he gets her back.

Castle gives up on sleep and heads into his office. He pulls up the same program on his computer he used to make Johanna's murder board when he was researching the case behind Kate's back to write down everything he knows about Jerry Tyson and Kelly Nieman. He falls asleep in his chair only to be woken up by a concerned Alexis an hour or two later.

The notes he collected the night before have gotten him nowhere so he grabs his coat and heads to the precinct, praying that Gates will grant him this. One of their own is missing and she's never okay with that.

* * *

When she starts to come to, she becomes immediately aware of the fact that she can't move. Whatever they injected her with to get her here must have been some type of paralytic. She focuses everything she can into a lifting a finger off of the table they left her on, but to no avail. She stares up at the ceiling of whatever this building is, but there's nothing special about it. And the room is too dark for her to take any further inventory.

Kate forces air into her lungs, a panic attack tightening her already tight chest. If she could move, she'd be kicking herself for walking right into a trap. She should have known better, should have seen it coming. She shouldn't have ended up here, the final pawn in Tyson's endless vendetta against her team.

Her mind drifts to Castle and she starts to wonder if she'll ever see him again, if she'll make it out of here alive. She can't leave him a note hidden beneath her blood this time. She can't record herself telling him that she loves him and mail it to him like he had done in Canada. She has no way to say goodbye. No way to tell him all the things that need to be said.

She tries to think back on the last words she said to him.

_I'll be back_.

Kate blinks back the tears that fill her eyes. She wonders if this was how he felt in Canada, the reason why he made those videos. This feeling of desperation and unyielding desire to assure him that she didn't go down without a fight. But he knows her. He knows she would never surrender on her on accord. So what does she need to tell him? That she loves him? Because he knows that too.

Maybe it's an extension of that conversation they had this morning. Something they've been tip-toeing around for months. But what good is telling him that she wants a baby if she doesn't survive to create that life?

Maybe she just wants to tell him that they've had a good run. That the past seven years, he's breathed the life back into her. He woke her up from the dull ache that had become her life and got her to laugh and smile and love again. She wants to tell him that she wouldn't change any of it...well except for maybe lying to him after she was shot and trying to push him away. But aside from that, her best memories from the past seven years all involve him and she's grateful to have known him. To have loved him. And to have been loved by him.

That's what she would say if she could somehow get the message out to him. He may know that she loves him, but sometimes she wonders if he truly knows just how much he means to her.

She has faith in him. Faith in the man who has always come to her rescue, just as she has always come to his. But the majority of the time, in these situations, he's right here with her. But they're separated this time, just like this summer. She knows what it's like to be on the other end of all of this. She even had Tyson and Nieman pegged as suspects at one point.

She just wants to get back to him, back to their life. They didn't go through everything with his disappearance months ago only to get him back and have her disappear. She just wants to scream and cry that it isn't fair, like a child who hasn't gotten her way. Because she hasn't. She finally got her months of happiness only to have them be replaced with whatever this is.

Apparently a normal life is too much to ask for.


	2. Chapter 2

She startles awake, her hand flying to her face to feel for a scar that doesn't exist. She exhales sharply, looking over at Castle's sleeping form next to her. The dream was too real. She can't manage to shake the feeling of the scalpel digging into her skin, even though it didn't actually happen. She managed to save herself. She managed to _survive_.

But still she knows that woman's face will haunt her for weeks to come. Even her death will haunt her, the woman's blood staining her hand red as she had repeatedly stabbed her with the scalpel. She keeps telling herself that she didn't have her gun, that she didn't have any other choice. But the violence of her death at her hands is never going to escape her.

Because she isn't the type of person who just snaps the way that she did. Except yesterday she was. And she can't take that back.

Just as Kate settles back against the pillows, she feels him shift in bed next to her, her name tumbling from his lips on a desperate plea. He's still asleep, trapped in some nightmare about this god awful case. She wonders how long they're both going to be trapped in this fog of fear. He's just as shaken by this whole thing as she is and she just wants to go back. Back before this all started when she actually considered them to be happy.

Kate curls back into his side, gently rubbing his chest and urging him out of his nightmare. His eyes fly open and he inhales a sharp breath as he startles awake. His gaze focuses on her and his face softens, one of his hands coming up to cup her face.

"Did I wake you?" he asks softly.

She shakes her head against his hand, pressing herself closer to him and trying to stop the tears pricking her eyes from spilling over. She hasn't cried yet. And she doesn't want to.

"I woke myself up," she confesses. "Thought Nieman had actually cut into my face."

His thumb rubs over the skin of her cheek and as he does that, she feels a tear slip free. He almost lost her. Again.

"No scars here," he tells her, wiping at the tear as it meets his thumb.

Kate hums, giving him a small smile before resting her head back against his chest.

"You were saying my name," she tells him. "And not in a good way."

Castle's arms wrap around her, holding her tightly. "Tyson had a decoy you set up. He had her killed right in front of me. Before I knew it wasn't you... Kate, I was back in that cemetery. But I couldn't save you this time."

She feels the air catch in her lungs, thinking about what he had said three years ago, about watching the life leave her eyes in the ambulance. She hates Tyson so much for this. Castle shouldn't have had to watch that again, even if it really wasn't her he was watching.

"No scar this time," she whispers. "You said it yourself."

"I don't know how you did it," he mumbles, repeating his earlier words. "Two months of that. Kate - "

Her hand snakes up and presses a finger against his lips, quieting him.

"Don't think about it like that, okay? It'll just drive you crazy."

His left hand grabs a hold of her right one and she traces over his wedding band with one of her

fingers.

"So," he starts slowly. "How bad is it?"

"How bad is what?"

"You know what."

She's silent for a moment still fiddling with his wedding ring. She knows he's talking about her PTSD and the anxiety that accompanies it. She just really doesn't want to think about it right now.

"I'm calling Burke tomorrow," she says softly. "Maybe you should talk to him too. If you can't sleep, he could help."

"I don't know if therapy can help erase the images of you being killed right in front of me from my head."

"Babe -"

"I hate this," Castle cuts her off. "We caught Bracken. That was supposed to mean that you were safe. That your nightmares were going to stop. That we were going to live normal lives."

"I know," she whispers so quietly he almost doesn't hear her.

She had been thinking the same thing when she woke up on that table.

"At least we're partners again," he says, trying to lighten the mood. "I hope my vast amount of clients aren't too bummed out about that."

He hopes the joke will drag a laugh out of her, bring back that same radiant smile he'd seen at the precinct when Gates had given them the good news. But he's met with only silence. In the darkness, he's not even sure if he managed to bring that little half-smile to her face.

"Kate?" he prompts.

She doesn't want to get into this now, lay all of her fears out there for him. But if she doesn't say this now, she's not sure that she ever will.

"When I woke up tied down to that table, I kept thinking about how we had just been talking about having kids. And I just kept thinking, what if I was pregnant right now? What if I had been pregnant when I was shot or water tortured or force fed all of that alcohol? How is a child ever going to be safe with me when there is constantly a target on my back? I don't want to die young like my mother, put my kid through what her death put me through. I don't need them to grow up chasing the dragon who killed their mother like I did. That cycle has to end with me."

Castle threads his fingers through her hair, brushing his lips across the crown of her head.

"Tyson and Nieman are dead," he tells her. "Bracken is locked up awaiting trial. And to my knowledge, we haven't pissed off any other serial killers in our time together."

"Yeah, but I haven't retired yet. There's still plenty of time. And I don't doubt that just because Bracken is locked up, he won't have men on the outside still doing his bidding. Castle, how are supposed to bring a baby into this world someday when we can't even go a year without something bad happening to one of us?"

"Because we're fighters. We've made it out of every bad situation that's ever been put in our way."

"And what happens when that one comes along that we don't make it out of?"

"Kate -"

"Or when our child has to constantly deal with the worry that their parents, that their mother, could go out and get hurt again today? I remember how Alexis looked at me after I got shot, how she worried that it could have been you."

His hand moves down from her hair to rub at her back.

"Castle, I want to be a mom someday, but I'm so damn scared."

He pulls her impossibly closer to him, trying his best to let his touch comfort her.

"It's been a rough couple of days," he starts, still rubbing her back. "But like I said, is there ever a right time to have a baby? You weren't worried about all of this before this mess happened. You knew stuff like this could happen, but you wanted to talk babies anyway."

"Because we were happy," she sighs. "And I thought it might be time to start trying. But now, I'm not so sure."

"We'll get there again, to happiness. It may take some time and some work, but we'll get there. And when we do, when you're ready, we can talk about kids again. Now please tell me that you're not going into work tomorrow so I can keep you in this bed with me all day."

She hums a little at that, nudging his chest with her nose. "Yeah, I'll be here."

"Good, good. And Kate?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm really, _really_ glad that you're okay."

She reaches up to kiss him, her fingers dancing along his jaw line.

"Like you said, I'm fighter, Castle," she starts when she pulls away. "I couldn't give up and make you a widow."

"Well I appreciate that, thank you."

She kisses him again before snuggling back down against his chest.

"Wake me up if you have another nightmare," he tells her. "I'll talk you through it, calm you down."

"Same goes for you."

She still sees Nieman's face when she closes her eyes, but at least this time, she believes she'll be able to move past all of this and find her way back to happiness.


End file.
